Advocacy Developers Convergence
June 28-30, 2004, San Francisco

Conference Backgrounder

"Online Advocacy" is a fast-growing technology arena. Development is being done on dozens of platforms, systems and services to enable campaigns, issue advocacy, "get out the vote" (GOTV) projects and other communications, organizing, and mobilization efforts. Themes that consistently emerge in discussions among developers of such technologies include the difficulty of tracking other projects in the space, the desire to build bridges and dialog between the various initiatives, and the need to grow the circle of knowledge around online advocacy platforms and tactics.

Aspiration and the E-Volve Foundation are hosting a 3-day convergence of software developers and allies working at the intersection of civic engagement and technology. The gathering will take place in San Francisco, USA from June 28th through June 30th 2004. Groundspring is generously providing meeting space at their offices in the Presidio.

The primary goal for the gathering is to allow advocacy developers to meet, share and compare projects, and take time from development efforts to celebrate each other, to grow community around the work that is being done, and envision future collaborations and directions.

The agenda will be designed based on input from participants in the weeks leading up to the gathering, and substantial time will be blocked out for free-form brainstorming and ad-hoc collaboration. Several agenda goals have already emerged in preliminary dialogs:

• Discussion of issues and opportunities around interoperability and data interchange between different platforms. Where can we share formats and functionality, and what collaborations between initiatives are possible, reducing redundancy? One likely topic in these discussion will be the viability of an open source legislative database, but a wide range of interoperability subjects will be addressed;
• Discussion of how to focus non-partisan efforts around the US elections between now and November;
• Mapping out the online advocacy space, enumerating the platforms and players. This will include identifying existing maps, guides, reviews and directories of products and services. In addition, we will work toward finding a common vocabulary to describe platforms and capabilities to the organizers, NGO's and intermediaries who need to evaluate and select tools for campaigning and advocacy;
• Visioning for a larger convergence that would bring organizers, online advocacy practitioners and technologists together for training, skill shares and socializing.

The convergence aims to continue and unify existing dialogs while catalyzing new threads of discourse and cooperation. Participants will work to identify gaps in current advocacy technology offerings and opportunities for community-driven solutions and shared development projects. We look forward to a powerful and productive gathering.